Hey, I don’t think I put this up on the blog yet, but recently the LA Flute Guild asked me to arrange Chick Correa’s popular latin-jazz classic “Spain” for five flutes, piano and congas. Chick began “Spain” with an intro taken from Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez;” I decided to end it that way too, because Chick’s ending is kinda tiresome. Also, if you listen closely about 3/4 of the way through you’ll hear a little bit of The Who’s “Pinball Wizard!” Oh, also, I decided to call my arrangement (to the tune of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” ) “SPAIN SPAIN SPAIN, SPAIN OF FLUTES!” Hope you like it. Let me know if you need YOUR favorite song arranged for a shitload of flutes.

*******

2. How does Matt Cunningham pay his kids’ Catholic School Tuition?

I know that is something all of you wonder and worry about a lot – of course AnaheimBlog‘s Matt Cunningham is paid a certain amount to propagandize by Anaheim’s and OC’s big corporate/klepto interests – enough to motivate Matt to jump through the most absurd rhetorical hoops to convince people of things like

that only “leftist/socialist/Democrats” want to vote “by district” in Anaheim (when it passed by over 70%),

or that Arte Moreno will up and take his Angels team to Tustin or Hawaii if we don’t agree to rent him the whole gigantic parking lot around the Stadium for a dollar a year for 66 years.

They do pay him enough to write those things without embarrassment, but we know that it is still nowhere near what a father would need to send three or four kids to Catholic school. How does he do it? Well, a good friend of ours caught a screen shot of Matt’s blog a few weeks ago that gives us a hint. Note the targeted Thai-girl hookup ad:

It’s funny because Matt is such a sanctimonious prude – as I’ve written, a “judgmental ‘Christian conservative’ who boasts of his ‘family values'” … who fought “hard and successfully against the rights of gays to marry, claiming that it would harm ‘traditional marriage’ in some mystical intangible way,” and who is “such a loyal unquestioning Catholic that he went and humiliated himself defending Monsignor Urell, the notorious protector of priest pedophiles.” It’s as funny as when we discovered him in 2013 working with the owners of the California Girls strip clubs to help them get past police objections to opening a rowdy “Tilted Kilt” in Matt’s town of Orange – a story that drove Matt around the bend and made him repeatedly threaten to sue us … but it’s still up because it was perfectly accurate!

Oh well, enough fun, THIS is the most serious thing this weekend:

Sunday Rally at the HB Pier against the TPP

(TransPacific Partnership)

This remains the most important, most uncovered-by-the-media story of the last few years – apparently neither the right-wing media nor the allegedly liberal “mainstream media” want these negotiations to fail. And this “NAFTA on steroids” which will give transnational corporations unlimited power over the efforts of any poor little nation (including ours) to protect our sovereignty, consumers, workers or environment, is gonna be on “FAST TRACK” this month if the President and the corporatists on both sides of Congress get their way. Seriously, they say, coming to the Senate next week, Congress by April 20.

But, toss a rock in a crowd – no, better make it a foam football – and the chances are MICROSCOPIC that you’ll hit anyone who’s heard of this monstrosity. So we’re having a rally/protest at the Huntington Beach Pier this Sunday from noon to 3. Show up, make your voice heard and/or find out more. I’ll be playing piano and hope to come up with some good anti-TPP songs by then. And the great thing is when you’re done, you’ll find that you’re at the Huntington Beach Pier on what’s likely to be a very nice day! Here, listen to Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who can explain things better than me.

I can happily report that MY Congressman-for-life, the eccentric Republican Dana Rohrabacher, is against the deal and fast track for all the right reasons – I invited him to the rally but he won’t be in town, but hopefully he’ll send a spokesman. Santa Ana’s Democratic Congresswoman-for-life Loretta Sanchez has been speaking against it, but only on the narrow grounds of Communist Vietnam being included in the deal – always playing to her Viet voters. I tried to get across to her guy how MANY OTHER GOOD REASONS there are to be against the TPP.

Ed Royce and Mimi Walters, slimy kleptos that they are, are enthusiastially backing it. I have regrettably not thought about calling Alan Lowenthal yet, and I can’t guess which way he’d go; as I also can’t guess with the malevolent Daryl Issa – just opposing the President is probably reason enough for HIM to fight TPP.

But here are the numbers you should call, first thing Monday – especially our two Senators, neither of whom have made a statement on it yet:

Senator Boxer: 202-224-3553

Senator Feinstein: 202-224-3841

And whoever is your Congressman – if you’re an OJ reader you probably know which one it is:

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher: 714-960-6483 (Thank him)

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez: 714-621-0102 (Tell her it’s more than just Vietnam)

Finally anyone not yet up to speed on this burning issue should read the great piece D’Marie Mulattieri wrote for this blog in February; I believe I’ll just go ahead and reprint most of it right here. Then when you’re done, go ahead and talk about this and whatever else you’d like – this is your WEEKEND OPEN THREAD.

For the last six years, corporate representatives have met in secret to hammer out the details of the next “free trade agreement” between the United States and 11 other nations bordering the Asian rim. This agreement is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (TPP.) The other participating nations include: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.Do you remember during the 1992 Presidential debates when candidate Ross Perot said that the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico would cause a huge sucking sound of manufacturers moving south? He very clearly explained that big business follows the path of least resistance, meaning lower labor and environmental protection costs.

The above headlines regarding our sinking economy since the implementation of NAFTA show the accuracy of Mr. Perot’s predictions. What do you think is going to happen when we open trading with Vietnam where their minimum wage is less than $55 per month? There will be another huge sucking sound, this time to south Asia.

What’s really scary is that President Obama is asking Congress to basically give up their Constitutional right to negotiate international trade (Article 1 Section 8) by awarding him a negotiating tool called Trade Promotion Authority. Formerly called Fast Track Authority, this tool has been implemented to pass bad trade policy like NAFTA. It gives all negotiating power to the executive branch, limits the amount of time that the House and Senate can debate the trade agreement and restricts Congressfrom making any amendments on the TPP or any other free trade agreement that would be considered during the next five years it is in effect. Quite simply the trade agreement becomes a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

So, what is exactly contained in this “free trade agreement” that President Obama hailed in his State of the Union address? That’s a great question. It’s impossible to give a straight answer because the draft text which consist of over 450 pages and 29 chapters has been heavily guarded from the public as well as our Congress members! Representative Alan Grayson was granted time to review the draft after months of requests. Not allowed to take notes or photos, and having had to swear that he would not divulge actual details, he emerged saying,

“Having seen what I’ve seen, I would characterize this as a gross abrogation of American sovereignty, and I would further characterize it as a punch in the face to the middle class of America. It’s all about tying the hands of democratically elected governments, and shunting authority over to the nonelected for the benefit of multinational corporations. It’s an assault on democratic government.”

From leaked texts we know that only 5 of the 29 chapters actually deal with trade. The balance of the chapters basically gives multinational corporations carte blanche to do what they want, where they want, when they want. No local, state or national regulations will be safe from scrutiny or prosecution by big business if they deem the laws to prohibit future potential profits. A provision called “Investor State Dispute Settlement” will allow corporations to actually sue government agencies for healthy, safety or environmental protections that they feel will impede future earnings. The United States has already paid out over $350 million to foreign investors due to bans on toxic substances, land use rules and timber policies, and we continue to face another $12 billion more in claims thanks to NAFTA.

What does this mean for you?

Loss of jobs and lower wages, greater income inequality.

Health and safety laws will be attacked resulting in dangerous working conditions.

Imported food that does not meet our US safety guidelines.

Labeling of foods NOT ALLOWED.

Continued deregulation of financial markets that could lead to another financial meltdown.

No “Buy American” or “Buy Local” campaigns used to rebuild our economy.

The quality of our water, earth and air severely compromised by the destruction of environmental protections.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! At this point you may be scratching your head and wondering why would Obama and other Congress members be pushing something that will put the nail in the coffin of our dying economy?Follow the money! Cui bono? Who benefits?

The TPP replicates the worst of past damaging trade deals on offshoring and more, but it goes further, championing outrageous new corporate-favored terms that benefit the multinational corporations to the detriment of the residents of participating nations. The continued push for Fast Track now known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to further the advancement of fake free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and its kissing cousin following on its tail, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is proof positive that we are living in an oligarchy where the 1/10 of the 1% hold all the power.

Folks, if you are a small business owner, you need to be involved in stopping these deals. The deals are for the benefit of BIG BUSINESSES alone – the huge transnational corporations – not for small businesses at all.If you are a working professional, you need to be worried. This time it’s not manufacturing that is going to get hit, it’s white collar professionals. The Asian rim has been preparing for this and educating their cheap workforce to take your jobs.If you are retired, you need to be concerned as these provisions will severely impact your Medicare as well as your quality of life.In short, WE ARE ALL AFFECTED!!! So we all need to be involved in stopping this huge give away to the fascists that are running the globalization of our planet.

What can YOU do?

The concern over the dangers associated with Fast Track and the secretive trade agreements is shared by those on the right and left side of the aisle. During the fall of 2013 Democrats and Republican Congress members wrote letters telling President Obama they would not support Fast Track Authority. The new Trade Promotion Authority bill will be released next week and hit the floor of Congress in March. We need to take action NOW!

Call your US Representative and US Senator and tell them that you want them to vote NO on Fast Track aka Trade Promotion Authority. Tell them you want them to their job which is to negotiate FAIR trade for our country. Tell them we want them to take their time going through the proposed “free trade agreements” and that they need to be able to amend the deal if it is necessary to do so to protect our rights and democratic process. Congressional Switchboard is 202-224-3121.

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist in Orange County, and official troubador of both Anaheim and Huntington Beach (the two ends of the Santa Ana Aquifer.) Performs regularly both solo, and with his savage-jazz quintet The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.

46 Comments

TPP and the Trade Promotion Authority does as much damage to the commonweal as Fukishima has done to the environment, and nobody talks about that either. I can’t be by the sea on Sunday but will be on the phone. Go get’em Vern. People need to scream.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to officially announce her candidacy for the 2016 presidential election on Sunday, putting an end to months of speculation about her plans. Here are some key things to know about the first Democrat to declare her candidacy:

Campaign Slogan: “I deserve this”
Campaign Strategy: Overwhelming tide of inevitability
Spouse: Former Arkansas attorney general William Jefferson Clinton
Wingspan: 7 feet, 6 inches
Ideal Running Mate: Primary opponent who knows how to gracefully step aside when the time comes
Biggest Scandals: Deaths of four Americans at Benghazi, use of private email account for government emails, choice of Nina McLemore dress at a 1998 presidential function
Grandchildren: One, but pushing Chelsea for one more before Iowa caucus
Stance On Abortion: Supports a woman’s right to choose for her husband’s mistress
Birthplace: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming
Number Of Times Teeth Gritted To Date: 489,346
Things She Personally Understands As A Grandmother: Hope, faith, future, education, children, all that crap
Greatest Fear: Charismatic young senators from the Midwest
Number Of Big Macs That Fit In Mouth At One Time: 2
Biggest Challenge: Not completely blowing it
– The Onion

I’m disappointed President Obama would be involved in this degradation of his country and the economy he has fought so hard to recover. My senator is Issa….sigh. When I call I get a staffer who roboticaly notes the message. If I get through at all.

That’s a hug …. right?
This is the front page of the formerly libertarian/conservative OC Reg … right?

Greg Diamond

Posted April 11, 2015 at 9:15 PM

Just because one guy has his arm around the other?

OK, I get it now, skally. Let me see if I can help out here. Hmmmm….

Try to imagine something more benign. They could both be straight, but the guy on the left is part of a crime ring that has kidnapped the wife and children of the guy on the right, and is instructing him to “act normal” or else he’ll give the signal that they are to be killed. And the guy on the right is going along with it outwardly, while quietly devising a daring and audacious plan to save his family.

Happier now? No longer teh gay!

Greg Diamond

Posted April 11, 2015 at 9:17 PM

Then again, if memory serves (and I haven’t Googled it), aren’t those are the names of the two active military members who gave a ceremonial first kiss a while back?

fought “hard and successfully against the rights of gays to marry, claiming that it would harm ‘traditional marriage’ in some mystical intangible way,”

It was embarrassingly circular logical hocus pocus dressed up to try to look like real logical thought. That’s how he always does it. And when that fails he falls back on the authority of forces unseen. When that fails he resorts to waving the flag or dubiously citing the Founding Fathers. After that come the accusations of “intellectual dishonesty.”

So who IS pushing TPP and WHO is the “They” that won’t let US Representatives speak about, take photos of or notes on something they are expected to vote on within a month. “we have to approve it to find out what’s in it” has now broken down into “we have to vote on it before we have even SEEN it?

Attacking Matt’s kids. Greg Diamond must HATE you. Meanwhile, KenLaysNotDead is rolling in his grave, if he was in fact not cremated.

The irony is that whoever sent you that tidbit was looking for young Thai girls himself. You guys know that’s how cookies work. It would be perhaps more beliveable if it were young asian boi’s. Given the profile of visitors to Anaheim Blog. Somebody might have got “outed”.

For all the talk about “integrity” the old fashion telephone still works great. You should have called city hall a out Vince Sarmiento. You could have saved off the embarassment of publishing false anonymous rumors. Hey BTW. “TansaAna” is now using the VOC to use you to attack Vince. Nice going. Right out of Matt’s playbook.

Jubal is a tool. Always has been. Always will be. But he is good at it.

But that wasn’t the point of the post, Vern. Note the sharp segue? It’s a tell.

“Ken Alexander” was the name of a police officer in Placentia, who in his military service was one of those who rescued Jessica Lynch. He died last fall at age 48, far too young. Either this person is a different Ken Alexander or the hijacking of this man’s name for petty political purposes is repulsive.

I tend to agree about the cookies, but I thought that there was also something else in the context of the site that led to the cookie’s placement.

Didn’t see anyone using the name “Tansa Ana” (or “Ana Tansa”) on the VOC site; go ahead and post the link if you’re not making up a snipe hunt.

I’m not embarrassed at all about publishing those allegations. My purpose (as evident in all of my comments on that post) was to find out what was going on — and it seems likely that that’s what happened. If anything, Vince comes off stronger for a whisper campaign being exposed. But had I called him, he would have said “no that’s not what’s happening” — and it could have been true or not true. Better to get to the bottom of it.

Do we have any friends in common who could vouch for your existence under that name, Kale?

*We so love Liz Warren, but are actually glad she will be spending her very important
energies…..working over in the Senate. “Hillary-Billary Doc, the mouse ran up the clock..
The Clock struck One………and all the Republicans rolled over and did the dying cockroach…..:Hillary by plus 12 to 14 points.

I’d say Republicans have changed. With their uncanny Orwellian ability to erase history beginning in their own minds, every one of these former Prop 8 crusaders will swear up and down to you, “I never had NOTHING against The Gay.” That probably includes you, Skally.

After our TPP rally (about 20 folks over the course of 3 hours, but we gave out lotsa good literature) I had a conference call with “America’s Senator”, Vermont independent Bernie Sanders.

He says FAST TRACK for this trade agreement will be introduced in the Senate, starting in Orrin Hatch’s Finance Committee, as early as tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday or Wednesday. OUR two Senators, the Democrats Boxer and Feinstein, have not indicated how they will vote. So we need to flood their phone lines tomorrow: again, Boxer: 202-224-3553 and Feinstein: 202-224-3841.

Senator Sanders says that while many if not most Democrat Senators oppose Fast Track and/or the TPP, IT IS SUPPORTED BY ALL REPUBLICAN SENATORS as far as he can tell. So we will lose in the Senate, although we should try anyway at least with our own.

Bernie says if we win and defeat fast track, it’ll be in the House, where there ARE both Republican Congresspeople opposing fast track on principle (like Rohrabacher) AND ones that just like to oppose the President whatever he tries to do. Thank God for that this time at least.

He says the corporatists who want this thing to happen as secretly as possible also want it to happen as QUICKLY as possible, because the closer we get into presidential-race season, the less likely it is to happen. Because it’s an unlovable piece of shit, the more people know about it!

Two great writers passed away today. Eduardo Galeano, whose book “Open veins of Latin America” may have been read by Obama when Chavez gave him a copy. His book ” Soccer in Sun and Shadow” is a good reading of sports and politics,

Gunther Grass, author of the “Tin Drum”. depicted Nazi Germany and his own contradictions. He became a critic of Israel policies and an advocate of peace and environmental causes.

Importing this comment from Cynthia (on a thread where Matt insists that he doesn’t make money from the Thai skin trade and Ryan is bravely beating away attacks from fictional characters named Anaheimster, Anaheim Jack, and Chmielewski):

Did Black sell out his client on purpose? I don’t know, do you think that offer of a dollar a year might have been accidental? Was it a typo? Maybe there were supposed to be more zeroes in there, in which case Michael Houston, Marcie Edwards, Paul Emery, Charles Black, Tom Morton, and four of five City Council members (including ONE REAL ESTATE ATTORNEY) MISSED the typo listing only one dollar instead of the market rate where one BEGINS a negotiation! Even if willing to work your way down from there you don’t telegraph that info. While this explains Lucille Kring saying nobody knows where the dollar came from, please explain why they all insisted on moving forward with a vote once the one dollar was brought to their attention, rather than back the Mayor’s motion to postpone the vote until the 24th so the public could review info we had NOT been given, and the City could FIX the one dollar that was apparently not supposed to be there?

If the dollar a year offer was intentional, then you answered the question. What I want to know is what you believe is the benefit to taxpayers for offering our real estate for ONE DOLLAR per year as an opening bid, and putting the potential tax revenues on the table as well, leaving taxpayers with the idea we will forfeit the market rate for the land AND the pennies on the dollar in taxes as well. Tell me again where is the value? Tell me that while I sell your car, without telling you in advance, and fail to split the price with you. If the buyer uses the car to drive to his new job, is his contribution to the local economy price enough to offset your loss on the car?

So here is the big question, Anaheimster. We sat there September 3 and heard Charles Black, City staff, and four of five Council members make the claim that the MOUs were NOT the final deal, that what was negotiated could be completely inconsistent with the MOUs, and lots of negotiation was expected. So why blame Tait for BELIEVING WHAT BLACK AND STAFF TOLD HIM? He heard this was not the end deal, we could get more out of it, he was on board for getting more out of it. This is wrong….how?

Or was that not true? Were the MOUs really the deal, the insiders expected to come back with final documents that looked just like the MOUs and thus Tait should have sat down and shut up? Is that the real scenario?

And if the Council was so afraid Tait was screwing up the deal, THEY HAD FOUR VOTES and were capable of approving Contracts exactly matching the MOUs, riding up and over Tait’s lifeless body as they do with pretty much every other issue, even when the public shows up demanding they not do so. Public opinion does not seem to be a factor in their decision making process. Did Tait mysteriously force his colleagues to not vote to make permanent that set of MOUs as a final contract? I wonder how we was unable to perform that same parlor trick at any other time in his administration?

I look forward to your answers, Anaheimster.

Sometimes people wonder why some of us hang out sometimes in that bad neighborhood of the Cunningblog. Well, it’s sometimes easier to reach greater heights, as Cynthia did there, when you push off against something dense.

“I have serious concerns about the up-down language within the trade promotion authority. While I am a strong believer in trade, I believe Congress should have more ability, not less, to review and amend trade deals of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement’s magnitude.

“In the end, it comes down to an issue of transparency. If the people’s representatives in Congress cannot review terms of negotiations that will impact our nation for decades to come, how can we be certain that these terms are in the best interests of all our citizens?” – Congressman Alan Lowenthal

Like I told his guy, that comes short of “I will oppose Fast Track,” but it’s hard to see how he could MEAN all that and NOT oppose it.

Meanwhile, yesterday, our commenter Even Steven who is a constituent of Darrell Issa, called him and reported back: “He has not issued a position at this time but is on record as being against the law’s lack of transparency.”